G. Steinberger. Matthew 8:17: O Lord, You have not taken offence at the infirmities of others but have borne them: You have not rejoiced in the infirmities of others but have looked on them with compassion: neither have You been dismayed at the infirmities of others but have endured them in love until the end. Oh, how often have I, who am so frail myself, judged the frailties of others, taken advantage of them for my own selfish pride, have gladly been among the lowly and the least of men, not to be lowly with them, but to be the greatest among them. But have you sought the frailties of others to bear them and to provide redemption? What do your followers do in this? What do your servants seek from people today? Matthew 8:20: You became poor in order to make others rich. You lived poor and gave abundantly. In poverty I will be like you and your apostles, I will possess nothing on earth. But not only outwardly, but above all inward poverty, poverty in spirit, that I have no place to lay my head, nothing to rest upon that is of me, but in everything to rest upon that which You have given me through Your death and resurrection. Let me, from this day forward, speak no more good and praiseworthy things about myself; for it is said that I am rich, and yet I am poor. Matthew 9:13: “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” Sinners are unreasonable, manipulative deceivers, quarrelsome, tiresome and demanding people. He did not just help such as these, but He actively sought them out. Because these were the most in need of His love and devotion. They were to Him, who was sinless perfection, the most unsympathetic people, and so His devotion to them was a continuously conquering love, where every word He spoke, every look, every deed from Him required an overcoming. His transforming Love was strong above all else, and His devotion and service sustained Him. Matthew 10:25: When they have rejected Jesus with contempt as the One, and have said of Him: When they do not consider Him worthy of life; when they brand Him as a criminal, when they treat Him as a lunatic—what will they not do to you? What can you expect? And by whom was He rejected? Not by the outcasts of society, but by the fathers, the elders of the people, those who represented righteousness, truth, and holiness; they found in Him, the Righteous, True, and Holy One, no righteousness, no truth, and no holiness. Imagine how painful it must have been for Jesus to have been rejected by the elders. Matthew 10:38: And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. The Lord knows His disciples by their cross. He who does not carry his cross cannot walk alongside the Lamb. Only in connection with the cross does one lose one’s self-life on which the curse rests and find new life, in which Jesus is the pivotal centre, the alpha and the omega. Lord, lead me deep into Your ways. There is rest, because you have nothing more to fear for your own part or to seek for yourself. In these two things: seeking one’s own and fearing for one’s own is the source of much unrest and, therein, lie most of Satan’s snares. Matthew 12:50: “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me.” His will and His love must ultimately become one and the same for us. God’s children are saved to always do God’s will. Matthew 15:36: Jesus did not want to do everything Himself: He did not think that if He had not done it Himself, then it hadn’t been done properly. Love alone thinks no evil of his neighbour, but it thinks more highly of him than of itself. He was so humble that He could say: . . . greater works than these you will do, because I go to My Father. For us, this means that in our prayers for others, we should expect them to do and experience greater things than us. He broke bread and blessed it before sharing it with His disciples. Can we accept that others distribute the good that comes from us, and it is credited to them, and that people receive it as if it was from their hand? Matthew 16:1: Jesus served the Father. He knew of no other service. He was not deceived by a distinguished audience. He did not bow to the teachings of the Pharisees, and He was not awestruck by the knowledge of the Sadducees. He called both leaven, which He warned His disciples to beware of. Matthew 16:23: Jesus was here, in the first instance, not hard against Peter, but against Himself, because He did not allow Peter to take sides with Him in a false way. Everything that feeds our self-will shall be as Satan to us.

“Because the darkness is passing away, and the true light is already shining.” 1 John 2:8. As certainly as there is a true light, there is also a false light. The main difference between these two lights is that the true light drives away the darkness, while the false light allows the darkness to remain. The false light wants to possess glory without driving out the darkness. In order to drive away the darkness, you must experience fellowship with Christ in His sufferings. False light wants no part of that. False light teaches that man was created only to experience pleasure. It makes a person feel in body, soul and spirit as if he has been transported from earth to the heavens, so that he feels free from all tribulations and sufferings—as if the resurrection had already occurred. God in eternity does not suffer; neither does Christ in His glory. They are not tempted, and the false light teaches that we should be like Them in this. On the other hand, the true light makes you quite aware that your body is on the earth. It teaches us that as long as we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord. 2 Cor. 5:6. It also teaches us that we are to deny ourselves, take up our cross and offer our body—not to pleasure, but to the living God as a well-pleasing sacrifice. Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.” John 8:12. Jesus said this in the days of His flesh when the light was breaking through and driving darkness out of His body with such powerful judgment that, “He had offered up prayers and supplications, with vehement cries and tears to Him who was able to save Him from death.” This is how the true light opened the way through the body of Christ so that we also in our body can give the light and judgment free rein, forcing darkness to depart. True light has a body that is a sacrifice. False light has a body that enjoys. False light says that it is saved and spared from all sufferings. This tells us that it is not driving darkness away, but rather living in harmony with darkness. That is why Jesus also said, “If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!” Matt. 6:23. Our earthly body is a part of Christ’s earthly body and must go the way of obedience and suffering if we are to share with Him in His resurrection and be a part of His glorified body. First the natural, then the spiritual; there is an earthly body, and there is a heavenly body. The Spirit gives light. The Spirit of Christ led Him into death according to the flesh. After the Spirit had completed this work in Christ, God sent the Spirit to earth in order to lead us on the same way. True light demands sacrifice—water and blood. False light demands pleasure. The instruction that comes from true light leads to a greater godly fear. The false light is the devil’s lighthouse on the edge of the city of depravity. People who receive false light become lawless, and their conscience no longer restrains them; they can do whatever they want. Jude said it well when he called them, “spots in your love feasts, while they feast with you without fear, serving only themselves. They are clouds without water, carried about by the winds; late autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, pulled up by the roots; raging waves of the sea, foaming up their own shame; wandering stars for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever.” Jude 12-13.Johan O. Smith